The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

Pluckrose’s distinction of ‘Critical Social Justice’ and ‘Liberal Social Justice’. The latter is the belief that inequalities and injustices in society are best addressed through civil discourse, the free exchange of views, and evidence-based analysis. The former is the belief that society is irredeemably unequal and unjust, that these structures are maintained by oppressive groups wielding power over the oppressed, that these groups are defined in terms of identity (i.e., race, gender, sexuality), and that the solution lies in the forcible reconfiguration of language, history and social norms.

Nice definition of Critical Social Justice “woke”

The truest commitment to diversity, of course, involves a recognition of the primacy and sovereignty of the individual. To borrow a metaphor from C. S. Lewis, the symphony of the world would be insufferably bland if all the instruments in the orchestra played the same note.

love this lewis quote and analogy to highest form diversity is each individual

Censorship First and foremost, ‘wokeness’ is a belief system underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is constructed through language. Its adherents are convinced that words can be a form of violence and that censorship – either by the state or Silicon Valley tech giants or societal pressure (colloquially known as ‘cancel culture’) – is therefore necessary to guarantee social justice. Power The ‘woke’ maintain that society operates on the basis of invisible power structures that only those who are trained in Critical Theory are qualified to detect. This conceptualisation is derived from Foucault, who saw power as produced by discourses that permeate all society in all directions, and not solely as a top-down phenomenon. ‘Power is everywhere’, he writes, ‘not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere’. Denials of such structures are taken as further evidence of their existence, as anyone who would deny them is likely to be benefiting from the privileges they afford. Society must be reconstructed in order to guarantee equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. In other words, we are talking here about ‘equity’ rather than equality. Identity politics The ‘woke’ see people in terms of their group identity rather than their individual qualities. Race, gender and sexuality – as opposed to class or economic disparities – are taken to be the determining factors when it comes to mapping the power structures t...

Tenants of woke beliefs per doyle

The new puritans have singularly failed to understand that, when it comes to inequality, money is what matters most of all.

Money the source of inequality not race or gender

Robert Jay Lifton as ‘thought-terminating clichés’, those ‘brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases’ that ‘become the start and finish of any ideological analysis’.

I like this concept of thought terminating cliches ie dismissing an idea as "far right talking points"

the freedom ‘to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience’ is the ultimate liberty.

ABsolutely

Claiming to be an ‘antifascist’ is rather like wearing a badge saying ‘I am not a paedophile’; it makes others wonder what you’re hiding.

Lol

Richard Delgado has emphasised how critical race theorists differ in their various approaches, but has helpfully identified four common traits. Firstly, Critical Race Theory ‘takes as a given that racism is not a series of isolated acts, but is endemic in American life, deeply ingrained legally, culturally, and even psychologically’. Secondly, that it ‘reinterprets civil-rights law in the light of its ineffectuality, showing that laws to remedy racial injustices are often undermined before they can fulfill their promise’. Thirdly, that it ‘portrays the traditional claims of the legal system to neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy as camouflages for the self-interest of dominant groups in American society’. Finally, ‘it insists on subjectivity and advocates that legal doctrines be reformulated to reflect the perspectives and experiences of the “outsider groups” that experience racism first hand’.

Critical race theory tennants

the obsession with ‘equity’ over ‘equality’. The distinction is an important one, often misunderstood. Whereas liberals have always been determined to promote equality of opportunity for all, irrespective of race, gender, sexuality or class, the new puritans believe in equality of outcome.

Equality vs equity

Little wonder that the mostly bourgeois firebrands of the culture war have earned themselves the soubriquet of ‘cry-bullies’.

Cry bully

In early 897, Pope Stephen VI had the body of his predecessor Formosus exhumed, dressed in its priestly attire, and propped up in the council chamber to face trial for trumped-up charges of perjury and usurping the bishopric of Rome. During what came to be known as the Synodus Horrenda (Cadaver Synod), Stephen hurled abuse at the corpse and tauntingly challenged it to reply to his accusations. When he was inevitably found guilty, Formosus was stripped, mutilated, and thrown to mobs who obligingly consigned him to the River Tiber.

Pope Stephen VI exhumed for trial ...interesting. Similar to woke canceling of historical

According to surveys by social scientists, the percentage of American citizens who are afraid to express their political views openly has tripled since the McCarthy era. As I have argued elsewhere, self-censorship rather than state censorship represents the most direct threat to the intellectual health of contemporary society. This is what John Stuart Mill meant when he wrote about the ‘despotism of custom’ and ‘the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling’.

John stuart mill self censorship due to intimidation

This is the fallacy of mistaking change for progress. No doubt the Iranian revolution of 1979 felt like a step in the right direction for Islamic fundamentalists, but women who bore the brunt of the reimposition of strict religious codes of conduct and dress were, on the whole, less enthusiastic.

Difference between progress and change.. change not always good

We have seen how the culture war is not just a matter of competing ideologies, but competing realities. The first is the liberal model deriving from the Enlightenment, promoting human and civil rights, free speech, scientific enquiry, individualism and justice. The second maintains that truth is illusory, speech can be violence, and we are products of systems of power and privilege revolving around group identity. The paradox of this model of reality should not go unnoticed; it believes that the only truth is the one we feel as individuals – ‘lived experience’ – but at the same time it promotes a collectivist view of humankind. One of the reasons why the religion of Critical Social Justice has been so difficult to combat is precisely because it rejects the concept of reason that is so key to Enlightenment thinking. One cannot argue with someone who believes that the argument itself is an oppressive denial of his or her truth.

Nice contrast of woke versus enlighment liberalism

We have seen how the culture war is not just a matter of competing ideologies, but competing realities. The first is the liberal model deriving from the Enlightenment, promoting human and civil rights, free speech, scientific enquiry, individualism and justice. The second maintains that truth is illusory, speech can be violence, and we are products of systems of power and privilege revolving around group identity. The paradox of this model of reality should not go unnoticed; it believes that the only truth is the one we feel as individuals – ‘lived experience’ – but at the same time it promotes a collectivist view of humankind. One of the reasons why the religion of Critical Social Justice has been so difficult to combat is precisely because it rejects the concept of reason that is so key to Enlightenment thinking. One cannot argue with someone who believes that the argument itself is an oppressive denial of his or her truth.

Another contrast of woke contrast with enlightenment social liberalism

The new puritans would like to think of themselves as the underdogs, brave tellers of truths in a corrupt and unequal world. But if the ideas you are advancing are endorsed by Hollywood, big tech, all major corporations, academia, the mainstream media, the United States government and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it’s difficult to make any great claims to radicalism. Far from fighting against the establishment, the ‘woke’ are the establishment.

THe woke ARE the establishment

‘Of all tyrannies,’ wrote C. S. Lewis, ‘a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive’, for ‘those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience’.

The ‘appeal to motive’, a form of ad hominem circumstantial argument, is particularly common among the new puritans.

Appeal to motive literary fallacy

Thomas Paine put it: ‘To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture’.

Thomas Paine quote lots of relevance to arguing with the woke that reject reality

Critical Thinking, this is called the fallacy of ‘affirming a disjunct’; that is to say, ‘either you are right or I am right, which means that if you are wrong I must be right’.

Fallacy of definitively right or wrong

All the convictions had come about due to a reliance on ‘spectral evidence’; without the visions of the girls there was nothing left to justify the verdicts. It was the girls’ ‘lived experience’ that damned the accused, and anyone who expressed scepticism was inviting the spotlight of suspicion to fall upon them.

salem accusers also argued on basis of lived experience

To oppose the new puritans is to be concerned about an inherently divisive ideology whose natural terminus is segregation according to race, gender and sexuality. It is to be concerned about a worldview based on the faith of intersectionality, which pits minority groups against each other in ever-more elaborate hierarchies of ‘privilege’. It is to be concerned about how many of those who believe themselves to be ‘on the right side of history’ are increasingly intolerant of viewpoints that do not precisely match their own, and have no compunction about bullying, demonising and threatening those who step out of line. It is to be concerned about those who claim the power to intuit the secret motives of others, who interpret their detractors’ words in the most uncharitable possible way, and who consider all forms of dissent as an expression of evil. It is to be concerned about the way in which terms such as ‘racist’, ‘white supremacist’, ‘homophobe’, ‘transphobe’, ‘fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ have been rendered virtually meaningless through continual misapplication, and how even liberals and left-wingers are now routinely mischaracterised as ‘far right’ for the slightest point of disagreement. In short, it is to resist the ongoing infantilism of public discourse.

Nice summary of opposing woke

As they crossed the Ipswich Bridge they passed by an elderly woman. Almost by instinct, the girls broke into convulsions and cried out their usual accusations of sorcery. But the passers-by simply ignored them, or moved away. Without an audience to validate their cries, the girls had little choice but to fall silent and resume their journey. After this remarkable event, it is said that the girls made no further accusations. This is our Ipswich Bridge moment. While those in authority continue to heed the cries of the new puritans, our society will continue to be dominated by the witches of their imaginations. If we continue to indulge them, we make ourselves party to their collective delusions.

Salem analogy ipswitch bridge where delusions first not entertained